2013/14

E-learning Unit, Centre For Teaching & Learning International Islamic University Malaysia, Level 2, Education Building, P.O. Box 10, 50728 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tel: (603) 6196 4155/4157/4056/4059 Fax: Admin (603) 6196 4156 E-mail: italeem_support@iium.edu.my

iTa`leem – A Student Guide

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Contents Introduction for IIUM students ......................................................................................................................................... 2

Where else to get help if this document doesn’t answer your questions .................................................................... 2

What is iTa`leem? ............................................................................................................................................................. 3

How do I access iTa`leem? ................................................................................................................................................ 4

What will I find in iTa`leem? ............................................................................................................................................. 5

My home - Course overview ......................................................................................................................................... 5

Personalising iTa`leem ...................................................................................................................................................... 6

Customising the Course overview page ........................................................................................................................ 6

Editing your profile ....................................................................................................................................................... 6

Site Home – Navigating Course Page .............................................................................................................................. 10

Navigation block.......................................................................................................................................................... 10

Accessing iTa`leem using mobile devices ....................................................................................................................... 11

Android users .............................................................................................................................................................. 11

IOS users...................................................................................................................................................................... 11

Assignments, Forums and Quizzes .................................................................................................................................. 12

Submitting Assignments ............................................................................................................................................. 12

Posting to Forums ....................................................................................................................................................... 13

Attempting Quizzes ..................................................................................................................................................... 14

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Introduction for IIUM students This guide is for all students who are associated with the University and who are required to access iTa`leem as part

of their studies. It has been designed as a brief guide to help you get familiar with the basics of using iTa`leem.

ITa`leem is managed and supported by the E-learning Unit, Centre for Professional Development (CPD).

We are happy to provide support for students who are experiencing problems with iTa`leem.

Email: italeem_support@iium.edu.my

Where else to get help if this document doesn’t answer your questions The main menu block in the iTa`leem login page has links to FAQ for students as

well as iTa`leem Forum whereby students can post questions.

If you’re looking for support using ITa`leem such as finding your way around,

submitting assignments, downloading files and participating in activities, post

your questions in the iTa`leem Forum.

If you’re having problems logging into iTa`leem, send e-mail to

italeem_support@iium.edu.my. Alternatively, you call the E-learning Unit at

CPD.

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What is iTa`leem? iTa`leem is the new e-learning platform in IIUM.

iTa`leem stands for Innovative Teaching and

Learning Environment System. It is in line with the

National E-learning Policy which requires that all

public universities adopt a Web 2.0 enabled

Learning Management System (LMS) for its e-

learning platform.

iTa`leem is based on an open source LMS i.e.

Moodle (Modular Object Oriented Dynamic

Learning Environment), version 2.5. As of June

2013 Moodle had a user base of 83,008

registered and verified sites, serving 70,696,570

users in 7.5+ million courses with 1.2+ million teachers (Wikipedia).

What are the benefits of ITa`leem for students?

The IIUM ITa`leem learning environment (iTa`leem) is used in a blended-learning mode – part face-to-face and part online. It is fast, flexible and adaptable. It provides a simple, clear view of all learning activities and resources for your courses, including assessment information and facility for online assignment submission.

iTa`leem includes subscription tools to receive email notifications about forum discussions or marked assignments.

Finally, because iTa`leem is based on Moodle which has a strong open source community, it provides IIUM with a flexible foundation for continued improvement and expansion, meaning that we can continue to shape it to suit our changing educational needs.

Some of the advantages of iTa`leem to support your education at IIUM include:

Increased access to important course information

Additional learning support with online course materials and online resources

You can study anytime, anyplace.

To make the most effective use of this system:

Ensure you know how iTa`leem is to be used within a specific course

Participate in discussion forums, complete online quizzes

See iTa`leem as additional support, not as a reason to miss classes

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How do I access iTa`leem? You can access iTa`leem through a web browser (we recommend Chrome or Firefox) on any internet-connected

computer. This means that you can access iTa`leem from home as easily as you can from the IIUM campus.

1. To access iTa`leem, open a web browser window and type in the following web address:

http://italeem.iium.edu.my

2. You should now see the iTa`leem home page as shown below.

3. On the right-hand side of the screen, you will see a login box. Type

your matric number for username and your pin number

(password) as password into the appropriate textboxes and then

click on the button. Your password is known only to you. If you’ve

forgotten it, use the link beneath the login button to retrieve your

details.

4. If you have problems to login, try the following:

a. Make sure you have changed your temporary pin no given

to you by AMAD/CPS when you first came to IIUM.

b. Activate/Update your

account at the MyIIUM portal

front page (before you log in,

scroll down to see the red box with the words “Login Problem?!

ACTIVATE your account….”

c. Log into the MyIIUM portal and update your profile.

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What will I find in iTa`leem? iTa`leem is where you will find a whole range of information related to the courses you study during your time at

university. Your instructors will use ITa`leem to provide you with resources such as Word or Powerpoint files, links to

further reading such as journal articles, to set out independent learning and group activities and to enable you to

submit work for assessment electronically and receive grades and feedback. It is a vital part of your academic life at

university.

My home - Course overview

When you log in into iTa`leem, you will be shown the My home page which contains the Course overview. The

Course overview page gives you access to all of the courses you have been enrolled on. Courses are listed

alphabetically according to course code, where you will also find links to any activities you should be participating in.

Note: if you do not see any courses listed, it might be that you have not completed your enrolment fully. Please

confirm your enrolled courses at the MyIIUM portal or contact AMAD or CPS to confirm you are properly enrolled. If

you continue to have problems, get in touch with the E-learning Unit via italeem_support@iium.edu.my

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Personalising iTa`leem

Customising the Course overview page

iTa`leem has options for students to customise the course overview page by clicking on the Customise this page

button at the top right-hand side of the course overview page.

You can change the number of courses to display and you can drag and drop to re-order the course list.

Editing your profile

You can edit your personal profile in iTa`leem. By editing your profile, it will help to

create your online identity and give people an idea of who you are and what you’re

interested in. It will also make iTa`leem work better for you.

Once you have logged into iTa`leem, you can access your profile from

Administration block > My profile settings > Edit profile, or by clicking on your

name at the top right of the screen.

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To make changes to your profile, click on the Edit profile link and you will see your profile settings as shown below.

You can now go through each of the settings options to set your own personal preferences. Here’s an outline of each

of the options and what they mean.

Email address

The email address should be a valid e-mail address and one that you check regularly. It is used for course

announcements and e-mail notifications from iTa`leem, including messages from Forums that you are subscribed to.

It is also the address that is displayed to other users of iTa`leem, depending on your Email display setting (below).

Email display

This controls the visibility of your email address to others. There are three settings to choose from. Note that Hide

my email address from everyone only hides it from fellow students. Teaching staff and other staff with editing

access will always be able to see your email address.

Email format

There are two formats: Pretty HTML format (messages will be formatted) and Plain text format (plain text with no

formatting).

Email digest type

This setting determines how you receive any posts from Forums to which you are subscribed, allowing you to receive

messages individually or on a daily basis.

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Forum auto-subscribe

This setting lets you decide if you want email copies of posts that are added to forums. If you set this to subscribe,

the system will automatically email you copies of new posts in forums that you post in.

Forum tracking

Enabling forum tracking means highlighting the posts you have not read yet, which should improve your forum

navigation.

When editing text

This can usually be left on Use HTML editor (some browsers only). This allows for text formatting options, but

requires newer browsers. If you find your browser is not letting you edit text, change this setting to Use standard

web forms.

City/town & Country

Add your location.

Timezone

This field is used to convert time-related messages on the system (such as assignment deadlines) to the local

timezone (Server’s local time). This setting should not be changed.

Preferred language

You can view iTa`leem in two different languages, either in English or Arabic. Note: changing the preferred language

only affects the iTa`leem interface, not the course content!

Description

In this field you can enter some text about yourself, be it information about your studies, hobbies, qualifications or

anything else.

User picture

This section is optional and allows you to choose

your own profile picture. Your current picture is

shown, which is extracted from the student

database.

New picture

In this setting, you can choose a new picture for

your profile. The picture must be in JPG or PNG

format. To upload your picture, drag and drop the

picture into the dotted line box area shown above.

NOTE: Make sure that the file is not larger than the maximum size listed, or it will not be uploaded. When you click

Update profile at the bottom - the picture will be cropped to a square and resized down to 100x100 pixels. When

you are taken back to your profile page, the picture might not appear to have changed. If this is so, just use the

Reload button in your browser.

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Optional

This section is optional and allows you to put in

your Web page, Skype ID, Yahoo ID, etc.

When you are done click the Update profile button at the bottom to save changes to your profile.

IMPORTANT NOTES

1. It’s very important that you don’t include any personal or sensitive information in your profile such as

mobile phone numbers or addresses.

2. Your profile can be seen by anyone who you share a course with – i.e. other students who are in the same

course as you.

3. Please make sure that any picture you upload is not copyrighted, rude or offensive. Do not use avatars or

any other characters for your picture. Use your formal passport photo.

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Site Home – Navigating Course Page There are several ways to move around an iTa`leem course to access content, resources and activities.

Navigation block

When you are in the Course page (Site Home)

you will see the navigation block on the left-side

of the page. The navigation block is a good way

of navigating your way through iTa`leem. You’ll

see the navigation block on all pages in iTa`leem.

Exactly what it looks like will depend on which

area of iTa`leem you are accessing it from.

Expand the options by clicking on the arrows.

The navigation block provides you with quick

access to content and activities within all

modules which you have access to. It also lets

you quickly and easily access your My home –

Course overview page and profile information.

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Accessing iTa`leem using mobile devices iTa`leem can be accessed using mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablets.

Android users

For Android users, go to Google Play store to download and install the

free app Moodle Mobile

IOS users

For IOS users (iPhones and iPads) users, go to iTunes to download and

install the free app Moodle Mobile

Run the application. Enter iTa`leem’s URL, your username and

password. Once logged in, you can view your course activities, post

forum discussions, attempt quizzes, etc.

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Assignments, Forums and Quizzes Instructors will usually upload

resources into iTa`leem such as

Microsoft Word or PowerPoint files or

PDF files. These resources can be

downloaded by students.

Instructors also may add activities into

the course page such as assignments,

forums and quizzes. When they do this,

students will see in their course overview

page that they have assignments that

need their attention, a new forum is

posted and there are quizzes due.

Students will also be notified by e-mail.

Submitting Assignments When you click the assignment link, you

will get the assignment page which

shows you your submission status,

grading status, due date and time

remaining before the deadline. Click on

the Add submission button to upload and

submit your assignment.

After you have submitted your

assignment and the instructor has given

the grades and feedback for the

assignment, you will be able to see your

grades and the feedback from the

instructor.

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Posting to Forums

Instructors may ask you to

discuss a certain topic in a

forum discussion. When you

click on the forum link, the

forum page will appear as

shown below. Click on the

Reply link to post your

discussion in the forum.

Type your reply in the Message box,

choose your Subscription option and

click the Post to forum button. The

Subscription option gives you a

choice of either to receive e-mail

notifications every time a post is

added to the forum or no e-mail at

all. When you post your reply in

forums, make sure you use proper

English words. Do not use short

forms or abbreviations.

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Attempting Quizzes

When you click the quiz link, you will get

the quiz page which shows the number of

attempts allowed, the quiz open and

close times, the time limit and the

grading method. Click on the Attempt

quiz now button to attempt the quiz.

During your quiz attempt, you will see the Quiz navigation block on the left-hand side of the page which shows you

the question numbers and the remaining time left (if the instructor sets a time limit). You can jump from one

question to another by clicking on the question numbers in the Quiz navigation block.

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After you have finished and submitted your quiz, you will see your results immediately and the correct answers for

each question as shown below.